A law enforcement official says US Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the warrant that gave the Justice Department access to Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private e-mails.

President Barack Obama on Thursday said that Holder
would review Justice Department guidelines on dealing with
journalism investigations. The government has been accused
of violating journalists’ constitutional rights by secretly
obtaining Associated Press phone records and Rosen’s personal
e-mails to find the sources of information leaks.

“I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations
may chill the investigative journalism that holds government
accountable,” Obama said during his speech on counter-terrorism
policy on Thursday. “Journalists should not be at
legal risk for doing their jobs.”

But while the president announced that Holder would look into
the Justice Department’s policies regarding the matter, a law
enforcement official told NBC News that Holder was personally
responsible for signing off on the 44-page warrant that gave the
department access to Rosen’s e-mail account.

This warrant called Rosen a “co-conspirator” in a leak
investigation from June 2009, which revealed
North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test despite US
sanctions. The warrant also allowed the Justice Department to track
Rosen’s movements in and out of the State Department and all
communications with his source, security adviser Stephen Jin-woo
Kim.

Justice Department regulations usually require the attorney
general to sign off on subpoenas of journalists’ phone records and
warrants for arrests or interrogations, but that rule does not
apply to email records.

Last week, Holder told NPR that he is “not sure” how many
times he has authorized obtaining journalists’ records, thereby
saving himself in the AP case. He also told the House Judiciary
Committee that he was not the person involved in the decision to
pursue the source of information leaks in the AP investigation. But
if the law enforcement official’s claim about Holder signing off on
the Fox investigation is true, he may not be able to rescue himself
again.

Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente called the
Justice Department investigation “downright chilling”, and
numerous media outlets have published editorials and op-eds
condemning the department for criminalizing journalism.

Fox News President Roger Ailes on Thursday
responded to the Obama administration’s “attempt to intimidate
Fox News”. In a memo that he sent to the network’s employees,
he condemned the federal government for violating journalists’
constitutional rights, rejected the characterization of Rosen as a
“co-conspirator” in a crime, and expressed the pride he has for his
staff.

“The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its
employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the
test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not
allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy
era, to frighten any of us away from the truth,” Ailes wrote.
“…To be a Fox journalist is a high honor, not a high
crime.”